1-1 A History Of The Devil And Satan In Old Testament Times

To begin at the beginning. The words satan, devil, demon, lucifer, fallen angel etc. simply don't occur in the whole of the book of Genesis. Throughout the Old Testament, the one and only God is presented as all powerful, without equal and in no competition with any other cosmic force. The Old Testament makes it clear that any 'adversary' to God's people was ultimately under the control of God Himself. All Angels are spoken of as being righteous and the servants of God, even "Angels of evil / disaster", who may bring destruction upon sinners, are still God's Angels carrying out His will and judgments. God's people Israel initially held this view; but as has so often happened to God's people, they mixed their true beliefs with those of the world around them. The very early Jewish rabbis spoke of the human tendency to evil [yetser ha-ra] and the tendency to good [yetser ha-tob]. This tendency to evil they understood as being at times personified or symbolized by "the devil": "Satan and the yetser ha-ra are one" (1). But those early Jewish rabbis rejected the idea that angels had rebelled, and they specifically rejected the idea that the serpent in Genesis was satan. At that time, "the Jewish devil was little more than an allegory of the evil inclination among humans" (2). It is noted by the editor of Dent's edition of the Talmud that neither the Talmud nor the Midrash even mention satan as being a fallen angel (3).

Surrounding Canaanite Myths

It's been truly observed: "The Satan of later imagination is absent in the Hebrew Bible" (4). The Old Testament teaches that God is all powerful, with no equal; sin comes from within the human mind. Never is there any indication of a battle between Angels, and Angels falling from Heaven to earth. Indeed, the Biblical record at times makes allusions to the surrounding myths about a personal Satan [or his equivalent] and deconstructs them. The ancient near East was full of stories of cosmic combat, e.g. Tiamat rebelling against Marduk, Athtar the rebel; they are summarized at length by Neil Forsyth (5). The Old Testament stands out from other local religions by not teaching such ideas. And further, there are a number of Biblical passages which allude to these myths and show them to be untrue. Take Psalm 104, full of allusions to the Ninurta myth. But the inspired writer stresses that it is Yahweh and not Ninurta who rides a chariot "on the wings of the wind"; Ninurta supposedly struggles with the Satan figure who is in the "waters", but in Ps. 104 it is shown that Yahweh does with the oceans or tehom (cognate with the Akkadian Satan figure Tiamat) just what He wishes- He's in no struggle (6). Job 26:5-14 has a whole string of allusions to popular Canaanite myths of cosmic combat; and the point of the passage is that Yahweh is so far greater than them that effectively they don't exist. Thus "The Shades writhe beneath Him [a reference to Mot, writhing as a serpent]... he strips naked Abaddon... stretches Zaphon... by his power he stilled the Sea [a reference to the god Yamm]. By his cunning he smote Rahab. By his wind the heavens are cleared [a reference to the Labbu myth, in which the dragon is cleared out of Heaven], his hand pierced the twisting serpent". Compared to Yahweh, those gods have no power, and they have been effectively 'cleared out of heaven' by Yahweh's power- they simply don't exist out there in the cosmos (7). The well known 'Lucifer' passage in Isaiah 14 is another example, as we consider in section 5-5. This passage is about the rise and fall of the King of Babylon- the words satan, Angel and devil don't occur there at all. But the likening of Babylon's king to the morning star suggests parallels with the Canaanite myths about Athtar, the "shining one, Son of Dawn", who goes up to "the reaches of Zaphon" to challenge king Baal, and is hurled down. Surely Isaiah's point was that Israel and Judah should worry more about the King of Babylon, keep their eyes on realities here on earth, rather than be involved with such cosmic speculations which were obviously familiar to them. It was the King of Babylon, and not a bunch of cosmic rebels, who were tyrannizing God's people. The Babylonian power invaded Israel from the north, down the fertile crescent. And yet "the north" was associated in pagan thinking with the origin of the gods of evil (8). The prophets were attempting to steer Israel away from such a fear by emphasizing that the literal, human enemy and judge of Israel for their sin was to come from the literal north. They were to quit their cosmic myths and get real, facing up to actual realities in human life on earth. This is why Ezekiel speaks of the Kings of Tyre and Egypt in language very reminiscent of the myths about Tiamat, Mot etc.- they were to be caught like a dragon [tannin, cp. Tiamat], cut up and bled to death (Ez. 29:3-5; 32:2-31). Again, the point is to refocus Israel away from the mythical beings and onto actual realities here on earth.

Situated as it is at the crossroads of so many cultures, Israel inevitably was a state open to influence by the surrounding nations and their beliefs. Despite so many prophetic calls to keep their faith pure, they were influenced by the beliefs of those around them, especially with regard to other gods and the common idea of a god of evil. These influences are summarized in the table below.

Supernatural Beings And The Common Christian View Of Satan: Shared Aspects (9)

Deconstruction Of The Myths

The ancient Near East was full of beliefs that the sea was somehow where the Satan figure lived; the sea was nearly always identified with a personal god of evil (10). The record of the Red Sea destruction is instructive in this regard. Later Scripture identified the Egyptians and not the sea itself as "Rahab... the dragon" (Is. 51:9; Ps. 89:9.10)- whereas the common view was that the sea itself was the Satan figure. Moses' stress was that the real adversaries / satans to Israel were people, and not some mythical dragon figure. Even if such a figure existed, then Yahweh had destroyed him at the Red Sea, in that He clearly could manipulate the Sea at His whim. The conflict was between Israel and Egypt, God and Pharaoh- and not God and some dragon in the Sea. Habbakuk, perhaps writing in a context of Israel being influenced by pagan ideas about the Sea god, stressed that at the Red Sea, God thrashed and "trampled Sea with your horses" (Hab. 3:8,12,15)- as Marduk supposedly trampled the storm god, so Israel are being told that in fact Yahweh is the one who trampled the "Sea" god- and other Scriptures confirm this- Yahweh "Trod on the back of Sea", i.e. the supposed Satan figure called "Sea" (Job 9:8; Dt. 33:29; Amos 4:13; Mic. 1:3; Is. 63:3). Even if such a being existed, he had been destroyed for good by Yahweh at the Red Sea. "You split Sea... cut Rahab in pieces... didst pierce the dragon" (Ps. 78:13; Neh. 9:11;Is. 51:9-11). Thus the splitting of the Red Sea was understood as a splitting of the Satan figure or god known as "Sea". Several scholars concur in the need to read the references to "Sea" in this way (11). All this was what Moses had in mind when he sought to explain to his people what had happened at the Red Sea- even if there were such a being as the "Sea" god of evil, Yahweh their God had totally destroyed him and split him into pieces. And the real 'satan' was Egypt, real men on a real earth who posed a danger to Israel.

Notes

(1) Rabbi Simon ben Lakish in The Babylonian Talmud, Baba Bathra 16a.

(2) Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil And The Jews (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943) p. 19.

(3) A. Cohen, Everyman’s Talmud (London: J.M. Dent, 1949), p. 55. The same fact is extensively noted in Roy A. Stewart, Rabbinic Theology: An Introductory study (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1961), pp. 81-5, 88.

(4) T.J. Wray and Gregory Mobley, The Birth Of Satan: Tracing The Devil's Biblical Roots (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) p. 52.

(5) Neil Forsyth, Satan And The Combat Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989) chapter 2.

(6) This and other connections are developed in W.G. Lambert, The Background Of Jewish Apocalyptic (London: Athlone Press, 1978).

(7) This is but a brief summary of the careful research of John Day, God's Conflict With The Dragon And The Sea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). See especially pp. 38,39. It is also the interpretation of Marvin Pope, Job (New York: Doubleday) 1965 pp. 164-167.

(8) R.J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain In Canaan And The Old Testament (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972).

(9) Taken from T.J. Wray and Gregory Mobley, The Birth Of Satan: Tracing The Devil's Biblical Roots (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) pp. 92,93.

(10) Neil Forsyth, Satan And The Combat Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989) chapter 4 provides ample evidence of this.

(11) B.W. Anderson, Creation Versus Chaos: The Reinterpretation Of Mythical Symbolism In The Bible (New York: Association Press, 1967) pp. 98,99; F.M. Cross, Canaanite Myth And Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973) pp. 132, 140; Marvin Pope, Job (New York: Doubleday) 1965 pp. 67-70.